


past, present, future

by wan (kuro49)



Category: Gokusen - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, Post-Movie(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-15
Updated: 2017-01-15
Packaged: 2018-09-17 15:35:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9331778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuro49/pseuds/wan
Summary: He is all of his above.





	

**Author's Note:**

> i am laughing at myself because it is 2017 and i am rolling like its 2005.

It is not quite like he doesn’t have a mind of his own. He does, he thinks about things that are not Hayato too. But it is a lot like second nature, a reaction upon action when Ryu follows Hayato’s lead.

Here is the thing, Ryu can be honest too if only Hayato can just catch up.

Ryu has things he wants too.

 

“You are planning to leave.”

Hayato asks without a question.

And Ryu has to wonder why he bothers asking at all when it already sounds like a forgone conclusion set into stone sitting there between them. Ryu rolls his eyes in plain view of Hayato and tells him this.

“I am not planning anything.” He barely bites back adding _stupid_ to the end of his sentence but it goes unsaid.

They are not lying on the grassy slopes beside the river or sitting side by side in that café they frequent more than the arcade. But what they are, they are on their own, just the two of them again like a prelude to more bad decisions.

There is a stubborn set to Hayato’s mouth that Ryu recognizes like it could be his own. They are not twins but they do come in two. It is hard to forget when it gets them into trouble every time. Ryu waits like he is in no hurry even if he is bringing his fingertips between his teeth, biting at the nails he keeps short and trimmed just to prevent the temptation in situations like this.

He waits for the stubbornness to go from Hayato’s mouth to settle in the turn of his entire body to face Ryu in all of his nervousness.

It’s a gravitational pull he does not have any inclination to name but still feels to his bones. It aches, like growing pains.

Hayato reaches out, gives himself two seconds to hesitate before deciding that he has never waited before throwing the first punch. Foregone conclusions be damned. There is only so much damage he can do on his own. He wraps his hand around Ryu’s wrist, pulls his thumbnail from where he is worrying it between his teeth.

“You are letting someone else plan your life for you then.”

Hayato says it like he has any chance of changing a future even Ryu cannot. His petulance punctuates the underlying bitterness.

Ryu doesn’t correct him but he is not about to let Hayato have the last word either. This is still _his_ future they are talking about. Hayato doesn’t always get to have what he wants, and Ryu is not above reminding him of just that.

He pulls his hand from his.

It is very much an unfair world they live in.

“And you are not letting anyone stop you from doing what you want.”

“I’ve got you for that,” Hayato tells him. They are side by side, and where they are matters very little. They are much too alike for there to be a misunderstanding here, Hayato isn’t about to let Ryu have what he wants either. “I don’t need anyone else.”

Last words mean nothing in a conversation that never ends.

 

Hayato is gone the next day.

A week after, Ryu goes to Canada as planned.

His father is happy, that just about makes one person in this world at least.

  

Hayato is not stupid about his feelings. He isn’t Ryu.

He gets that last word in before he leans over and kisses him as hard as he throws his mean left hooks. Unlike much of what he has done with his life up until now, he gives this his all. It is far from a first kiss or even a good one. It is, after all, a very angry kiss. When he pulls back, he is almost anticipating something just as bruising in response.

“If this is a joke—”

“Ryu," the other looks a touch less startled at hearing his name from Hayato’s mouth, "you laugh at all my jokes.”

(He doesn’t but he has to understand what Hayato is trying to say here.)

“I am not laughing now.”

Hayato is grinning at Ryu's reply because he doesn’t need to say _exactly_.

They have always been, more or less, on the same page because if Hayato's kisses are vicious, then Ryu's are downright brutal. Hayato isn't surprised though, Ryu always gives as good as he gets.

And he gets him good.

 

There are many versions where it ends right here for them.

But life continues like a worn car tire making another turn, another cycle, passing that next mile marker. He doesn’t stop sleeping, he doesn’t stop eating or dreaming just because Hayato has made the executive decision to leave.

Life goes on for Ryu. (He believes for Hayato too.)

When he comes back to Japan, he comes back to these same streets again and again like he is retracing their steps. He can almost remember the way Hayato’s fingers wrap around his wrist.

 

It starts with a can beneath Yankumi’s foot and the empty stretch of Akadou's field around them. It ends with them at the end of the barrel of a gun being broadcasted on the national news.

Ryu doesn’t think it is for him.

In all fairness, he doesn’t think he should be thinking at all when he is sitting with a stack of half graded quizzes and a bag of frozen vegetables pressed to the back of his head. It no longer throbs where he took a baton aimed for Yankumi but it still aches and the swelling haven’t quite gone down completely.

He doesn’t think this is what he wants for the rest of his life.

The suit and tie and leather shoes fit him but they fit him all wrong. But it isn’t that. He doesn’t think he can go back to the bloody knuckles and the split lip and the sprained wrists or the bruised ribs. He cannot go back to fighting with his fists when there is an empty placeholder at his back.

If he can be honest with himself, he still remembers what it is like to _want_ things in his life.

 

There are many versions where Ryu leaves.

Whether it is the day after graduation or a week or a year, and longer.

The ones that Hayato fears the most are the ones where Ryu doesn’t breathe a word of it to Hayato.

Hayato is probably a little bit more selfish than he is willing to admit, but he is also a little more righteous and a lot in love with his best friend. He makes the decision for Ryu.

He leaves before he has to tell him anything.

He keeps in contact with Take and Tsucchi and Hyuuga but he doesn’t ask about Ryu and the three of them have known him long enough not to tell him a thing about Ryu. It is like mother and father are in the middle of their divorce and the children have yet to pick a side (Hyuuga’s words, not Hayato’s, Tsucchi would like to be the eldest on the claim that he is the tallest, Take votes no).

And then he is looking up to the live broadcast of Kurose Kentaro’s rally and at Yankumi and fucking _Ryu_ instead of anyone else in this whole, wide island of Japan.

Hayato doesn’t know what he is doing at all.

 

He reacts.

 

This world is still an unfair one and they are still terrible with making good decisions. But it is no longer all bad ones and that has to count for something.

When Ryu opens his door, he almost slams it back into place.

“What the _fuck_ , Ryu?”

Hayato isn’t quite sure what to expect but the chilled bag of frozen peas that hits him in the chest is not quite it. He is not forthcoming but he hates standstill moments like these where he can’t quite throw the first punch.

“I saw you on the news.”

He tells him instead.

Ryu steps back to let him in, mouth pressed into a thin line at his explanation. The distance between them remains constant, and Ryu hates how nothing has changed when it is relief flooding into his system before anything else at the sight of Hayato’s stupid face at his doorsteps because of course, it takes _this_ to get him to show up.

“You could’ve done something a little less Yankumi.”

Maybe it is the way Hayato says it, like Ryu is the reckless one of the two of them to always do what he wants, but Ryu isn’t about to let him off.

“And you could’ve come back on your own.”

Ryu doesn’t miss the flinch, he also doesn’t miss the way Hayato has his hair pulled back or the sunglasses firmly on even if it has been hours since the sky was even a little bit bright. He cannot believe he is asking at all but he is not cruel enough to keep it as a statement.

“Have you been crying, Yabuki?”

“It’s allergies.”

Hayato tells him like there is even a chance he would believe him but the petulance is the exact same since for-fucking-ever and like always, Ryu aches in his bones with the added bonus of this throbbing starting again at the back of his head.

“Give me back my peas.”

 

Near-death feels a lot like an angry kiss.

Ryu feels it like it is the last breath out of his lungs. He doesn’t choke on it. He barely even registers it. He focuses on Yankumi in front of him, her back to him, and how she never even wavers. His hands tighten into fists at his sides, the blunt edge of his fingernails leaving imprints of crescent moons into his skin.

He remembers another angry kiss, one with actual bite, and thinks, perhaps, he is wrong. Near-death is not quite like an angry kiss at all.

For starters, he doesn’t miss it.

 

“Were you scared?”

Hayato asks.

“I don’t know,” Ryu admits, “I think it was mostly just adrenaline.”

“I was.” Hayato goes on like he doesn’t quite hear Ryu’s answer. He huffs out a tangled laugh that might have been an uneasy breath. “I still am.”

He doesn’t hold up his palms for Ryu to see the shake of his hands.

He doesn’t know why he is stopping now, he has never done it before. Ryu looks at him, gives him a one-two count’s worth of hesitation before he steps forward so Hayato can catch him in a fold of his arms.

“Catch up already, Hayato.”

The two of them probably look stupid, standing there in the genkan clutching at one another with their knuckles white. Hayato with his duffel bag at their feet and Ryu with his bag of frozen peas leaving the back of Hayato’s shirt damp.

“I’m tired of being alone too.”

Hayato lets the breath out of his lungs with those words.

(It is hardly longing even if it felt a lot like it. It is most definitely not yearning even if it resembled it in every shape and form it takes. Hayato has not allowed Ryu to be anything that ends in –ing for a long time now even if he never quite stops thinking of him.)

He sees the years in them, he wants _more_.

 

If Ryu thinks about it at all, here is their foregone conclusion: There were never any versions where Ryu doesn’t stay.

The bag of frozen peas joins Hayato’s duffel on the floor.

Ryu can be just as angry. The blunt edges of his fingernails fit right along the ridge of his hips, the close of his teeth down on the flesh of where his neck meets his shoulder will stay for days. He feels the shudder that goes through Hayato, he drags his tongue from sternum to the dip at the base of his throat in answer.

“You left.”

Hayato pulls back a fraction, an inch, and his accusation rattles loose from his chest. Ryu rolls his eyes in plain view of Hayato’s gaze.

“You left first.”

“You know you could’ve stopped me.”

Hayato doesn’t tell him _stay_. He is following Ryu’s lead this time.

“I am stopping you now.”

Hayato doesn't apologize. Ryu isn't waiting for him to. They settle on this mutually assured destruction where they depend on each other once more.

“Well, don’t stop now.”

Hayato lets Ryu press him bodily into the wall, his hands around his wrists.

 


End file.
